


Girls Like Us

by Aewin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Collegestuck, F/F, Fluff, Humanstuck, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 08:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3168602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aewin/pseuds/Aewin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When supergeek girlfriends Jade and Roxy share a physics class and turn it into a competition, who will win? And more importantly, what will the winner request as a prize?</p><p>Various scenes throughout the senior-year autumn semester of two dorky lovebirds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. August

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kylobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylobe/gifts).



> This is my first attempt at pure fluff, so I hope this satisfies!
> 
> Thanks to NuclearVampire, 2x2verse, Spockandawe, and Grimreaperchibi for tossing ideas around and helping keep me motivated!

Your name is Jade Harley, and you are currently paying respects to your grandfather.

Well, you're trying, at least. He really was a wonderful guy! He called you by your chosen name and everything. But your butt is falling asleep as you kneel at the newly-set-up  _butsudan_  altar in the corner of your bedroom, and the incense is making you yawn a lot, too. Bec shifts in the corner, and while you're thankful that he's familiar enough with this ritual not to interrupt, the rustle of his fur is a little distracting.

But the distractions don't really matter, because an even bigger, better distraction throws open the door to your room just seconds later, and comes bounding into the room to glomp you from behind. Roxy's arms twine around you tightly, and you smile at the familiar, clean scent of her makeup as she kisses your cheek.

"Hi, Roxy!" You snuff out the incense. Meditation time is officially over, now that Roxy is here.

"Looking ridiculously fine, nerdbutt."

You giggle and turn to kiss her. "And you  _taste_  ridiculously fine." You let her help you up, resisting the urge to check your tuck, because it doesn't matter as much, not with Roxy.

She shrugs her purse off her shoulder, and you follow her into the living room of your shared rental apartment, where she drops it onto the table with a  _thunk_. "Place looks nice, how long have you been here?"

"A few hours. I'd just gotten unpacked when you got here."

"Good, good." She nods absentmindedly, smacking on her gum. (You think it's cinnamon, from the way she tasted.) "Help me carry stuff in?"

"Sure."

You catch each other up on your lives as you carry in her bags. There's not a whole lot to say, since it's not like you didn't talk over the summer, being girlfriends and all! Her mom is almost done with her newest book, Roxy's been through electrolysis long enough that her facial stubble has stopped growing in, and she brought a  _whole_  bunch of food back from her vacation to her hometown in Nigeria.

It also turns out you're enrolled in the same physics class, and that's all the excuse you need to compete with her. You bring it up that night at dinner.

"Soooo, Roxy." You put down your fork to indicate you mean business. " I was thinking...we have this big ol' dry erase board on the fridge, and we didn't really use it for anything useful last year..."

Roxy gives you a pouty stare. "Drawing kitties is totes useful, Jade."

(She has a point, of course.)

"...well, yes, but wouldn't it be even  _more_  useful if we used it to study for the physics class we're both in? Science girls like us have to keep our skills sharp, you know."

Roxy throws a chickpea at you, and you nom it before going on.

"We could use it to keep track of a competition! We can ask each other questions off the study guides and stuff, and at the end of the semester, we tally up who got the highest percentage right."

Roxy pauses her chewing and gestures at you with her fork, mouth still half-full. "Well yeah, but-" she swallows "-a competition's gotta have a prize to make it worth it, y'know?"

You frown. Roxy's a lot richer than you, so you're not really sure what you could put up as a prize that would be very - wait. It doesn't have to be monetary, right? "Well...maybe the winner can pick whatever they want, within reason, to ask the other person to do for them? Big things are okay, as long as the other person is okay with it."

Roxy practically turns into the Cheshire Cat, she grins so widely. "Bring it, science girl. Your ass is mine. And a  _delightful_  one too, might I add. Lol."

You roll your eyes at the literal internet speak, but smile at her regardless. She's the cutest thing you've seen outside of Bec, and you're lucky to have her.


	2. September

>> Begin the semester

School starts, and the hallways bristle with pamphlets advertising a motley assortment of clubs, part-time jobs, laundromats, alternatives to the dining hall, and people seeking roommates. You  _almost_  opt for a part-time job, but in the end you decide to just stay in the robotics club. You've been in it for three years, after all. Why change now?

You show up for the first meeting early, but it turns out you didn't need to bother! The teacher leading you guys is late anyways. People break off into packs and chat while they wait, but there are a few shy newcomers sticking to the corners. Your eyes settle on a scowling guy with blue and red circuitboard earrings, hunched over on a bench.

Well, that's no good. Someone needs to wipe that frown away, and who better than you?

You skip over to him so fast you trip on your long skirt. He sniggers a little, you think, but reaches down to help you up.

"Hey there. Little excited to meet me?" His x comes out a little hissy, like he has a bit of a lisp.

"Umm, yep! Sure am!" You brush off your skirt. "I'm Jade, by the way."

"Sollux Captor, and before you say a word, yes I have a horrid lisp and you should pronounce it how you think it should be pronounced, not how I say it. Parents friggin' hated me."

You sit beside him on the bench and shrug. "To be fair, I bet they didn't know you had a lisp when they named you!"

He contemplates. "Sure, go and be all _logical_ , why don't you? I don't think I've ever had anyone just be cool about that before." He holds his hand out, and you shake. His fingernails are red and blue, just like his earrings.

"What's with the, um." You wiggle your fingernails at him. (Yours are currently an electric green.) "The two-tone thing, I mean. Not the nails in general."

"Twos are sort of my thing. I have a twin, we took two days to be born, we were born on June 22nd, I'm bigender, I'm ambidextrous...to put it bluntly, I'm not certain why anyone would use one thing where two would do even better."

You giggle. This guy is funny. But, erm. Wait. "Oh! So you're not a - okay, so what pronouns do you want me to use, then?" You and Roxy both know the pain of being addressed incorrectly, so you'd better correct this mental "he _"_  fast!

Sollux lifts their face upwards and mutters  _thank you, based deities._  " _Xe/hir_  works, if you know them." (You do. _Thank you, Dave!_ )

"Okay, cool." You fish around for a topic. "Sooooo...what kind of hobbies do you have? Probably some pretty technical stuff, since you're here?"

Xe nods. "Yep. Programming, gaming, doing really bad stunts with prop weapons to piss my friend KK off. Par for the course for a young nerd of questionable priorities, really."

"Oooh, gaming? Do you play FLARP Online?"

Xe rolls hir eyes. "Of  _course_  I fucking play FLARP Online, is that even a question? I'm insulted."

You smile. "I think I'd better take you home and introduce you to my girlfriend."

* * *

 

>> Unite nerds.

You're a little jealous, because you're pretty sure Roxy is in love. Okay, so  _maaaaybe_  it's not in a serious way, and  _maaaaybe_  she's just excited because the two of you keep kicking Sollux's ass in two-on-two duels, but...

 _VICTORY!_  flashes across your screen, and you decide that you kind of love kicking Sollux's butt too. Especially because hir friend keeps flooding chat with the most hilarious cursing when they lose.

Sollux headdesks dramatically. "Christ on a pogo stick, I used to be top-ranked in this thing and now I'm getting my ass kicked by a pair of lesbians."

You throw a piece of popcorn at hir. "Bisexuals, thank you, and don't be sexist." Roxy's piece of popcorn hits Sollux a half-second later. You give her a high-five.

"Sorry. I used to be an ass and it's hard to unlearn. I'm still an ass, of course, just in entirely different ways."

Roxy snickers. "Three bisexuals in the same room, huh? Someone should go check to see if this place is still visible on Google Maps."

Sollux cackles so hard xe falls off hir chair, and you and Roxy exchange grins. Hanging with Sollux is obviously going to have to be a regular thing.

* * *

 

>> Join Roxy. Work with animals. Everybody wins!

As if one extracurricular wasn't enough on top of your senior workload, Roxy drags you into her volunteer work for the semester too. Not that you mind in the least!

The Humane Society smells like Bec times infinity, and you agree with your fellow volunteers that airing the place out is a good first step. You already know Nepeta a little, because she likes to hang out with Equius from the robotics club, but the shy guy with the mohawk is new.

His name is Tavros, apparently, and he’s pretty much a motivational speaker for animals, as far as you can tell! When a poor abused puppy growls at Roxy for getting too close to refill its food bowl, Tavros practically flies across the room to placate it, turning sideways and slowing down as he gets close. Within minutes, the puppy is licking him happily.

"I, um. It’s really not anything special, you just have to, be calm and quiet until they get used to you. And try not to, uh, look big or mean. A lot of the animals we get here have been hurt so it’s good to know."

He almost sounds like he’s asking a question, but he sure seems to know what he’s talking about, so you take his advice with the next animal that has a special care tag on its info card. The cat still stares at you accusingly, but it’s better than hissing or scratching, so you think you probably did okay!

You're almost done for the evening when a meowing blur of black fuzz jumps out of Roxy’s arms. The four of you chase it around for almost ten minutes before Nepeta catches it and deposits it back in its cage.

"This one has been here a long time," she says sadly. "Nobody wants to take a black cat, much less an adult. He’s so pretty, though." She rolls her  _R_ s pretty heavily, so it almost sounds like she’s purring, and the effect is adorable in combination with her knitted kitty hat. You know better than to think she’s helpless because of the image she gives off, though - she can hold her own with Equius in an arm-wrestling match, and just tonight you saw her heft a fifty-pound bag of dog food onto her shoulder like it was a purse.

Roxy’s eyes almost literally morph into a sparkly, love-stricken shojou manga stereotype as she turns towards you.

"Puhleaaaase can we get the kitty, Jade? He looks just like my mom’s. I can send her pictures and make her think I stole her cat."

"Right. Because that is  _totally_  the best reason to purchase a living, breathing animal and take it into your home.”

"He looks lonely too. C’m _ooooooon_ , you have Bec, can’t I have a lovey wovey little furball of my very own?”

You sigh. You honestly can’t refuse her.

"We need to buy supplies first, but…tomorrow, I guess."

She hugs you so hard you think she dislodges one of your bra inserts. Thank goodness for jackets.


	3. October

>> Sigh into infinity about midterms.

You absopositively don't want to be studying for midterms any more. You've studied for what feels like weeks, even though it's really only been a few days, and geez are you getting burnt out! But you have a scholarship to keep up if you want to stay here with Roxy, even though her mom's footing most of the bill. When Roxy notices you drooping over your study guide and suggests you quiz each other while making a delicious de-stressing dinner, you're not about to complain about the change of pace!

Roxy makes  _suya_  (heavy on the chili powder) while you prepare plain  _onigiri_  to go with it. It's one of your favorite combos, and the two of you both keep an eye on the plantain chips you're frying - it's really supposed to be just  _you_  making them, since the  _suya_  is more time-consuming, but...you've always had a little trouble paying attention to multiple things at once, and you ended up setting off the fire alarm the last time you multitasked while cooking. So Roxy helps out without saying anything, and you make sure to give her extra back rubs in return.

You pile the dishes into the sink to be done after you eat, and plop down around your tiny table with your study guides to quiz each other. You seize your chance to ask the first question while Roxy gnaws on a piece of  _suya_. Roxy's always been better at the technical details than the history bits, so you start off with one that she might not know.

"Mmm...what was the first type of antimatter particle discovered?"

Roxy gulps down her meat and squishes up her face. It does really cute things to her nose.

"What the fuck kinda question is -?" She sighs. "Fine, I don't know, but I kinda don't care either. Gimme the  _meaty_  questions, c'mon." She bites off another piece of meat to emphasize her point.

"It was the positron. And the positron is the antimatter particle for...?"

"Electrons."

"Right. Good girl, best partner."

You take a bite of food while Roxy picks a question for you. The first piece of  _suya_ hits hard, burning with pepper, but by the time you swallow the second, your taste buds have pretty much been obliterated anyways. A follow-up mouthful of _onigiri_  helps mitigate the damage.

"What letter symbolizes frequency?"

You roll your eyes at her. "You left off the  _Greek_ , Roxy. That's kind of important. And it's  _nu_."

"Right, no getting things by you," she mutters. "Sounds like I need to ask you a  _nu_  question, lol."

You flip a plantain chip at her from the plate in the middle of the table, then pick up the study guide and squint. "Nope, it's you that gets a  _nu_  question. What color is light with a wavelength of 5000 Angstroms?"

"Ummm." Roxy drums her fingers on the table, her eyes flicking around in search of an answer. They stop, though - right on the study guide you're holding up. The back of the study guide, to be precise.

Also known as the side with the answers.

"....Green?"

You roll up the study guide and bap her on the nose with it.

"No cheating, silly! You'll fail the test and we'll both be sad forever."

Roxy sticks her tongue out at you. "Fine, fine, on with the test, fiend."

" _Now_  you get a  _nu_  one, since you cheated." You draw a small matrix on a piece of paper and slide it over to Roxy, along with the pencil. "Tell me if this matrix is Hermitian."

She practically attacks it, the pencil flying over the paper as she transposes matrices.  _This_  is her forte, the math and the details, the stuff that overlaps with her computer degree. If the interest is there, Roxy can do anything, and it makes you glow with pride when she gets the answer right all on her own.

You quiz each other for a few hours, and 'conveniently forget' to do the dishes so you can watch Korra together instead. She falls asleep near the end of the episode, and you can't bring yourself to move off the couch and wake her up, so you snuggle up to her instead and resign yourself to a sore back in the morning. You spoon Roxy all night to make up for it. (Totally worth it.)


	4. November

>> Rejoice, for midterms are over!

Boy, are you glad to be done with tests. With Roxy's help you secured your usual A, and your scholarship is safe until finals. And that means rewards!

You take Roxy to the gun range one weekend (she outshoots you, but barely - you'll have to brush up on your own sometime), and go to a party at John's house the next (relabeling all of Dave's records? hilarious).

Still, that leaves several weekends open. You're used to spending a lot of time by yourself, what with being raised on an island and all, so you definitely relish your weekend spent at home, punching the air with glee as you and Roxy take down asshole after asshole on Reddit. But it still feels like you're missing something, and it's only during the last week of November that you recall you haven't spent time with Sollux in a while.

 _Obviously_  it's time for a movie night!

* * *

 

>> Behold shenanigans.

Movie night has somehow turned into "catch the most errors in Pacific Rim" night, and you're okay with that, because Sollux, Karkat, and Kanaya are all entertaining as hell.

"I'm still not sure why the hell that Kaiju was pregnant to begin with, they're fucking  _clones,_ " gripes Sollux's amazingly critical friend. You've met Karkat plenty of times in-game, of course, but this is your first chance in-person, and you didn't expect him to be so  _small_. You kind of want to run some tests on him to see how words so loud can come out of such a tiny person.

Sollux comes right back with a rebuttal, because of  _course_  xe has to contradict anything Karkat says. It's a running theme with those two. "It makes plenty of sense. Humans have babies. You could clone a human and that clone could potentially have babies. Mystery solved. That's not actually a plot hole, dipshit."

"Call me dipshit again and I won't tank raids for you for a month."

"Dipshit."

Karkat growls and grabs Sollux by the shoulder, but Kanaya is off the floor in front of the couch and jamming herself between them in seconds like some sort of hyperspeed referee. (You're pretty sure she's the only reason they haven't killed each other yet.) The popcorn bowl tumbles off the arm of the couch with all the motion, and uneaten kernels spill across the floor.

Roxy rolls her eyes and moves to pick them up, but Kanaya shakes her head.

"Karkat and Sollux are more than capable of picking up the popcorn they spilled. Aren't they?"

They shoot each other angry glances, but get on their knees to pick the kernels out of the carpet. Kanaya flashes a smug smile at Roxy, who grins right back.

"Right," says Roxy. "So, I'm actually not sure how those helicopters were able to fly after that EMP went off by them."

"And I don't think the jaeger could have actually flown that high to do the drop, but I don't really think it needed to anyways? It was really only there to look fancy." Sometimes you have to sigh at moviemakers.

Roxy nods at you. "They had the wrong kind of weapons on those F-22 Raptors too. It's kind of a mess of a movie."

"But it was still good!" Karkat protests.

There's agreeable nodding all around, and then awkward silence. Roxy's cat Frigglish meows in concern.

"So! How about another movie?" you say, hoping to preempt another Karkat/Sollux fight.

There's a brief argument about what to watch, but in the end you wind up starting the first season of Defiance, which sort of implies that this will be happening again! And you don't have a problem with that, because everyone starts to behave themselves as soon as things start back up. Kanaya wraps her arms around Sollux and Karkat, and the three of them lean into each other while you and Roxy squish together on the other side of the couch, fingers combing through each others' hair absentmindedly.

It's calming, and comforting, and it feels like home.


	5. December

Roxy texts you on her way home from her last final, interrupting your packing spree.

so .liek, hey, dorkbutt. we need to talkky up the results tonite don't we?

yes we do!! I wonder who will be the winniest winner of all?

probs you, tbh. i look forward to bein ur sex slave four eterntity.

You turn red. That's not quite what you have in mind if you win, but it's eerily close.

like I would ever!!!

u would ;)

You tuck your phone back in your pocket (benefit of having Kanaya as a friend? _skirts with pockets!_ ) and resist the urge to run into the kitchen and check the results. Then again, maybe Roxy would appreciate it if she didn't have to count all those tiny tally marks. Kitchen it is, then.

Roxy got 223 of 242 questions right over the semester. Ninety-two percent. Not bad! You're in the middle of counting up your wins when Roxy sneaks up behind you and kisses you on the neck, making you lose track. At this point you're pretty sure she's a culturally-anachronistic ninja.

"So what's the verdict, am I yours forever?"

"Yes, but not because of this quiz." You swing her around and point her at the whiteboard. "Count mine. And  _no cheating_." You're pretty sure your nose-bapping cleared up that habit, but it never hurts to be sure.

It takes a few minutes before she's done, but when the values are compared it turns out that you won by an oh-so-impressive one percent!

Roxy presses her hand to her forehead dramatically. "Woe is me, for I have been slain in battle with the mighty warrior maiden." Then she actually fakes falling down in pain like a huge dweeb, and you reach out to try to stop her but she ends up accidentally pulling you down with her. You roll onto her, pinning her so she stops squirming like a dying fish, and plant a kiss on her lips.

"The warrior maiden requests that you calm your plush little butt down before she is forced to tickle you into submission."

She stops, and you smirk.

"That's what I  _thought_."

"Your weapons are too mighty, oh physiqueen. Name what I must cede to placate the fearsome beast."

You scrunch up your face. "Am I a beast or a warrior queen? Make up your mind already, geez."

"Both. Both is good."

You give her a hickey for her insolence, and while she's still breathing hard underneath you, you deliver your sentence.

"I am the conquering warrior, thank you very much, which makes  _you_  the beast, though maybe not so fearsome. You have to wear my kitty ears and tail whenever we're home alone next semester.  _Every. Single. Time._ "

Roxy laughs. She is way too excited about that.

"Here I thought this was gonna be some kinda punishment."

"Oh, but you don't know what I have in mind while you're in costume." You're bluffing. You have no clue what you could do to make this a bad thing for Roxy, but you're not really interested in doing so, to be quite honest!

She raises an eyebrow. "Oh really? I guess I'd better brace myself for a  _pawful_  semester, then."

You shake your head at her, but can't suppress a chuckle.

She laughs right back at you, then pulls you down for a kiss that's much softer than the bruising warrioress attack you made on her neck. You melt like ice cream in a microwave. When you finally pull away, she tugs thoughtfully at a lock of your hair.

"Y'know, it's actually a little sad. I should've applied myself more, I was gonna ask you to come home with me for winter break."

You twist your head. "Well, I don't see why I couldn't anyways, if you still want me to. It's not like I have family waiting for me. As long as I can take Bec, that is."

Roxy laughs. "Of course. I just hope we can tell Jaspers and Frigglish apart when we have to pick a cat to bring back."

Your lips meet again as you giggle, and you (quite ironically) melt again at the thought of a winter with your girlfriend.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't have space to make all of this explicit in such a short story, but for those who want the extra details or confirmation of what they suspected:
> 
> Both Jade and Roxy are (hopefully obviously but not in-your-face) transgender. Jade is Japanese but was raised by her grandpa on an island off of Peru, which passed to her after he died. Roxy is half-French, half-Nigerian. They met when Jade overheard Roxy and Jake arguing pistols versus rifles and Jade couldn't keep her dorky butt out of it. 
> 
> Roxy was, of course, immediately smitten.


End file.
